I'm in, are you?
by Wasp-Lord VGZ-33
Summary: Several years into the future, the Chaotix detective agency remains with one sole member, but that's not damaged his eagerness to help, or his determination to get a job, any job, done...
1. Chapter 1

"Please!" the older girl insisted, dropping to her knees before her younger counterpart, and nervously glancing around the room though no-one was there. She looked back at her sister, her pink-red eyes pleading with the urge for the seven-year-old to stop crying. With her grip on her sisters' wrists now getting to a point that could actually be dangerous, the wailing stopped and the young one gave an enormous sniff. "Just calm down."

"But…" she said with a wobbly voice. "The two men ran away with Ka!" her eyes, same colour as her sisters' and indeed their fathers' began to tear up and the fifteen-year old sighed. Her little sister had been so attached to her Chao ever since the little green thing had bounded up to her in the street last year and never let go, and for it to be snatched now was something that must have ripped the little girl's heart out as well.

"I know, Lacier," the older girl said, her hands resting on the Chao-less girl's shoulders now. "I will get someone to find it for you," she insisted, lifting her head to look her sister's watery eyes directly. This hadn't been something she'd wanted to happen in the middle of a trip her parents had to take that left her in charge of her sister and her Chao, and not least because she was hopeless at trying to find things. Her sister seemed to have momentarily forgotten that, though, and began to cry again, wailing her next words at her sister.

"But I don't want anyone else to find Ka!" she cried. "I want you to find him Guyenne! You know how to look after him and hold him properly!" The bigger girl released her hold on her sister's shoulders and held her head in her hands. Finding a Chao in this area of the city was a simply Herculean task that a fourteen year old girl simply wasn't up to doing. But how could she explain that to a crying seven-year old who had lost one of her best friends in the 'whole wild world' as she would always say?

"Lacier, go and have a lie down. I'll try and sort something out, and I'll have dinner ready for when you wake up," the bigger girl said, her head hanging low and tears of her own beginning to form. She wasn't up to this sort of responsibility, and she needed some time to think. The younger insect nodded obediently, though continued sniffling as she waddled dejectedly to the sisters' shared room and closed the door behind her.

There was silence in the apartment for a few long minutes, broken only by noises through the numerous walls, but apart from that the teenager was alone and in a quiet place. Just as she really liked it. After experiencing the near silence for a few minutes, ruined only by the Kumara family at #42 below bellowing at each other about the food for tonight, she got to her feet and wiped her face with a green-tinted hand to wipe away her tears. Guyenne took in a few deep breaths of the air and nodded to herself.

"I'm going to get a detective to help me," she decided. That way, she'd get protection, a guide and not hurt her sister's feelings. The only problem was, as she realised, looking around the tiny apartment, was that she'd need to get a very cheap detective in to help. She'd saved up a lot of money that she had been hoping to spend on herself, but it needed to go somewhere else now. A lot, of course, being respective to the neighbourhood they lived in. Like most insects, Guyenne's family had been shunned by most of the 'normal' population and lived instead in the outskirts of the city with limited waste collection and electricity that seemed to be turned off at random. 

Guyenne herself had never minded about the conditions too much, having learnt from long ago that this was a way of life for many people, and she may as well get used to it. She had scrounged her jeans from a bin in the main city, and after taking it home and washing it, she found it was perfectly wearable even if it did have most of the knee area ripped off. Her little sister was forever begging her to find her a pair, but it seemed younger city kids took better care of their stuff.

The only problem with this area was that if anyone came here from the city, it'd probably be one heck of a job trying to avoid looking shocked at the surroundings. Guyenne knew all this, and knew the idea of trying to hire a detective would be a difficult task. She was going to do it, though, she decided as she looked at the shut door of the room she shared with her sister. She put on her aged, worn baseball cap, threading her antennae through the two holes just above the rim, and stepped outside her family's flat.

She took a long look at the closed door as she locked it, remembering how disappointed she'd been when they'd first moved to the city from the countryside, That was when she was just five, though, and now she'd grown out of that mindset. #141 was her home now, and she was probably going to live there until she was eighteen, and married. That was always a little fantasy she loved to think of, and as she began the descent down the winding and rickety wooden staircase, gone mould with age, she began to imagine what it would be like to have an apartment that didn't have mould creeping down the wallpaper. She loved her family, there was no doubt about that, but she didn't love her home – the only way out of it though was through a lot of money to get a flat, the sort that was out of her league, being an insect and a girl together. In this primarily mammal-driven society, insect anthromorphs were often shunned and seen as 'disgusting' by most of society. They rarely got jobs, the children were often picked on in the streets, and violence and crimes against them rarely were solved. If they were accepted at all.

"I'll find someone," Guyenne told herself. _"I'll get someone for my sister, and to show Mum and Dad I can take care of business myself."_ But even with those brave words, she knew it would be hard to find a willing detective, who would work for a small fee, for an insect. She pushed that out of her head as she exited the stairwell, and entered instead the main floor of her apartment block. Better condition than the corridors upstairs, any mould had been whitewashed over, and the carpets didn't show any signs of mould. There were a few tables dotted around the hall, some with chess sets or piles of books on them for entertainment, but the one Guyenne wanted was over in a far corner, with a huge set of telephone directories stacked up on them. 

"Miss Aphid…" The teenager froze as she picked up the first of the telephone books, marvelling at its weight even in both of her hands. She turned round apprehensively, and sure enough it was who she thought it would be. It was one of the landlord's favourite rent collectors, who always did his best to collect the rent from the households where lived young, teenage girls. The landlord himself, an immense snail that weighed more than Guyenne's entire family put together, was simply too obese to carry himself round the apartment block, and resorted instead to hiring a selection of runners to get the money for him, and he picked very well. For him, at least.

The man staring at her from within the telephone cubicle against the wall was a mosquito, who had the unnerving habit of placing his proboscis against the person whom had answered the door as a threat for someone else inside to get the money, quickly. The young aphid had felt this first experience when she was nine, and hadn't been able to sleep properly for many days, even with the fact that her sister was in pupae form and as such was silent. After her twelfth birthday, whenever she was the one to open it, the sharp drinking implement was always placed somewhere that, for want of a less politically correct word, invaded her privacy. Her parents couldn't do anything about him, otherwise they could get evicted, and she knew that if she made a wrong move now, she could put her family in very, very big trouble.

"Ms Aphid, you seem to be looking for a certain someone on the phone, don't you?" he asked again, not moving his gaze one inch from her. Guyenne took in a deep breath to steady herself, and shook her head, replying breathlessly with a nervous glance back up at his black, beady little eyes, and his long, sharp proboscis.

"I know who I'm looking for, Mr Lariat," she said insistently the first time, a little bit of panic overtaking her as that sharp point moved slightly closer to her arm. The mosquito grinned beneath his natural drinking appliance, but kept most of him hidden inside the box. Guyenne flinched a little bit, and tried to move further away, but then her wrist was gripped by a hand belonging to the man, and she was drawn a little bit closer to him and his smile.

"Oh, that's good. I also know who I am looking for. A good thing to know, isn't it?" he asked, as his other hand made it up her second arm to hold her shoulder. The fourteen-year-old was putting all her willpower into not responding in any way, just hoping he would let go.

"May I make my call?" she asked in a tiny voice, bereft of any positive emotion or moisture in her mouth. The mosquito seemed to enjoy this response he was getting from her, and smiled even wider, so his grin widened almost to the edges of his face and around the sides. Mercifully though, he let go of her wrist and shoulder; though in Guyenne's mind, the deed was as good as done. "Thank you," she whispered, and holding the directory close to her chest, the bit that she had held it by now crumpled despite the sheer size of it from her gripping, she ran into the furthest from the mosquito's booth there was and shut the door hurriedly behind her.

She didn't touch the receiver for a few minutes, she just sat on the provided stool, shivering. Mr Lariat was only one of many, she'd heard one of her friends' parents say once, and she didn't doubt it for a second whenever her father and her had gone to the arcade machines as a treat and seen the eyes of many a drunkard follow her down the dark alleys. She gently bit her lip as she rocked back and forth, again remembering the idea that she had been asked by her sister to find her pet Chao on her own, in this place…

The memory of the mosquito outside though, was a driving force enough to convince her to uncurl herself from the stool, and opened the directory to the beginning of the job sections marked 'detective agencies'. Her eyes skimmed over some of the larger adverts as she was sure she couldn't afford any services of a company that could provide an entry in the directory that big. Instead, she paused at some of the smaller ones, crammed in between the large ads, almost as if they were there to just fill up space. Some of them were even written sideways, and Guyenne did her best to peer at them.

'Dan's Detectives. We'll find it.' The insect girl shook her head eventually, ruffling her wings in slight irritation. A name like that just didn't bode well for a fourteen year old girl, especially not after the confrontation with Mr Lariat out there in the next booth… She shivered again, and proceeded to the next one. 

'Aardman's Angling Agency: call the AAA for the things you can't find, and we'll do our best!" That sounded a bit better to her as she traced the invisible line underneath the advert. Eventually, she reached for the receiver and lifted it, slipping a small demi-mobium piece into the slot and dialling the number written on the page. She traced a ring in the air with her foot as she waited for it to connect. Eventually, it went through, and a voice on the other end replied. 

"Aardman's Angling Agency," called out a feminine voice on the other end. "How can I help you?" Guyenne was overjoyed at getting through, and hearing what sounded like a comforting voice on the other end. She eagerly held the receiver in one hand and wound a strand of her green hair through a finger.

"Do you… do you do chao-napping cases?" she asked, forgetting how pathetic a thing it was to ask. She only wanted a little bit of help, and the voice on the other end seemed to be one to offer it.

"We do…" replied the voice on the other end, and Guyenne almost leapt with joy. "Yes, we can and we will. May I take your name?" The aphid girl spent no time in answering the question, though she was in for a shock.

"Guyenne Aphid," was all she got out, for as soon as her surname was finished, she was met with a slam of a phone ringing down the earpiece. She blinked for a moment, staring at the graffiti on the wall opposite, her mind not quite registering what had happened. When she finally realised she had been hung up on due to her surname, the phone piece fell from her hand and dangled on the end of its cord. She had forgotten about how insects were treated in the city, and bowed her head. This was why she was such a failure – she had a hopeless memory.

_"Don't give up!" _a little voice inside her spoke up, and she took a breath, wiping the smidgeon of new tears that had begun to form. Surely, some detective must have a hint of kindness about them, and with that thought, she replaced the receiver, and began to riffle through the pages again.

---

Replacing the phone for the fifth time on the hook, Guyenne didn't feel so much upset but simply frustrated. Five different agencies, and only one of them had got past the opening question. She considered giving up then and now, but she knew she hadn't spent long in here. She probably had one last shot before she went up to cook dinner for her and Lacier, and with that, she let the heavy book flop open once again, and she turned the page. Again ignoring the biggest and showiest adverts, she suddenly turned the book on its side to read one advert that seemed completely crammed in at the last minute.

_"Chaotix Detective Agency!"_ proclaimed the slogan in the most ordinary font Guyenne had ever seen in a book. _"We never turn down paying work!" _The aphid paused, tracing her finger around the box. If they didn't turn down paying work, they might work for free, she considered.

"One way to try…" she muttered, picking up the receiver and quickly dialling the number, crossing her fingers in hope that she would get through, and not get slammed down. Funnily enough, the phone rang for quite some time before it was answered - where was the receptionist, Guyenne wondered.

"Good afternoon, Chaotix Detective Agency," said a very breezy and energetic voice down the phone. "You're speaking to Detective Bee, how may I help you?" The ghost of the smile that had traced Guyenne's face suddenly broke into a gasp at the last name. Many families in the city went by their race as their last name - she herself was an example of this, though technically she was a half-breed - so she guessed instantly that she was talking to another insect. She wetted her lips with her tongue, trying to drum up the courage to speak.

"Hello?" the detective asked down the phone again, not irritated but inquisitive. "Is anyone there? I'm not offended if this is a wrong number," he added, and gave a laugh. It put Guyenne at ease, and she let out a little giggle herself, before drumming up the courage to reply.

"No, I did mean to phone you," she said, pushing herself into the wall of the phone booth. "I was just… well…" she paused, and Detective Bee was quick to fill in the gap.

"Nobody else in the business is an insect? 'Salright, I get it a lot. So, what's your name, and what needs solving?" he added, and Guyenne was almost tempted to interrupt him and ask him to slow down. But he got to the point, and that was good. Hoping to all heavens she wouldn't get the terminated silence of a phone slamming, she replied.

"My name is Guyenne Aphid. My sister Lacier has lost her Chao, and I need help tracking it down," she explained, eyes closed tight and fingers crossed. Hearing silence for a long time, her antennae began to droop as she expected he had hung up or maybe even left the phone altogether. Suddenly, they retained their usual form as she heard a cheerful and happy voice on the phone.

"No problem at all, Miss," he replied kindly. "I'm used to going after Chao gone missing, so it should be a piece of cake. I'm going to need to just interview you and your sister at some point soon, so I can get some of the details," he added. "Would you rather it were at your own home, or at my office?" Guyenne replied almost immediately, the prospect of going to the city to meet a detective in his own office sounded like a fantastic way to spend a day, and Lacier would enjoy it as well.

"Your office, please," she replied, sparing a quick glance out the front window of the booth, seeing nothing but the tattered books opposite. The voice on the other end of the line asked her to hold for a second while he went to get a pen and his diary, and inside the cubicle, Guyenne shivered with excitement. She had got a detective to help her! Her spirits had risen the highest they had been all day, and she was only just restraining from singing out in triumph.

"Allrighty," replied the voice of the bee as he returned to the phone, and Guyenne heard the rustle of paper. "When would be a good time for you?" he asked, and Guyenne shrugged on the inside of the phone booth. She didn't get a real education, and had no real requirements for the day. "Is around eleven-thirty good for you?" interjected the bee, sensing the silence growing somewhat.

"Yes please," the aphid replied, nodding eagerly, and she heard the scribble of a pen on paper, the scribbles becoming slightly angrier.

"Hang on, this pen doesn't work…" the detective muttered, and the girl recoiled slightly as she heard heavy banging against the phone. "That's got it!" the cheery voice then said, and the scribbling began again. "Is your name spelt with one or two 'n's?" The girl replied to the latter, and the scribbling continued. "That's done!" said the detective breezily. "We're all set for an appointment at eleven-thirty tomorrow?"

"That's perfect!" breathed Guyenne, leaning against the wall in relief. "Thank you very much, Detective Bee," she added, trying to sound as polite as possible, but the insect on the other end only laughed.

"Please, just call me Charmy, I don't take any offence at it - I suppose I'll see you and your sister tomorrow!" the now introduced bee said pleasantly. "Right, my dinner is about to burn, so I've got to run I'm afraid," he added hastily. "See you!" he called down the phone one last time, before Guyenne got the now familiar sound of a disconnected phone buzzing in the earpiece. However, unlike the last few times, when she had been left feeling disappointed, she wanted desperately to sing, to cry out her happiness to the world. This not really being an option, she hung up the phone and swung out of the door of the cubicle, smiling pleasantly at all she met on the way to the stairs save for Mr. Lariat, and burst through her room door with an excited spin.

"Lacier!" she called out. "I'm going to find Ka for you, we're going to the city tomorrow to meet a detective to help us!" she added excitedly, and exactly as she had anticipated, the smaller aphid came bolting out of her room, evidently not asleep at all, and skidded to a halt at her sisters' feet.

"Really?" asked the small insect, her pinkish-red eyes still glittering with old tears. As Guyenne nodded happily, a smile spread across her face, she felt her younger sibling attach herself limpet-like to her leg.

"C'mon, lets go have some food," Guyenne suggested, walking off to the kitchen with some difficulty, considering Lacier was still holding her leg tightly.


	2. Chapter 2

"C'mon, Lacier!" grunted Guyenne at her little sister as she desperately tried to make the stitching up of one leg of her jeans go a little faster. Hoping to give a good impression on Detective Bee when she finally met him, she'd decided that both aphids should look the best they could. This wasn't going down well with Lacier though, who was wanting to wear her grubby shorts and t-shirt.

"But Gu, I don't want to wear the silly long trousers!" she complained, giving a little 'humph' and stamping her foot. Groaning a little, the elder sister got up, leaving the needle and thread dangling from her jeans and stepping into their shared room. Lacier was standing in her grubby stuff, looking disdainfully at the larger, cleaner clothes her sister had found in her old pile of stuff for her. "This is comfy," she added, tugging at her attire as if to prove a point.

"Lacier, the detective will want to see us in nice clothes, or he might not want to find Ka for you," Guyenne tried, but Lacier just stuck her tongue out at her again.

"You said he was a nice man. Nice men don't care what clothes you wear," she said, and the elder girl was forced to concede that her sister had somewhat of a point. In any case, she wasn't prepared to continue arguing - there were still two hours until the meeting, but the address she'd got after re-ringing Detective Bee to ask for it and write it down was a fair bit away from their home, and they'd no idea how long it would take. Instead, she sighed, waving her hand at her sister.

"Wear those, then," she said, giving in. Lacier squealed gleefully even as Guyenne continued trying to stitch up her jean knee. Eventually, it looked held-together enough to be only just an accident, and the girl sighed, standing up and putting on her favourite cap. "C'mon, let's go," she said, holding out her hand for her sister to take it. However, Lacier bounded on to the door and zipped out of it before her older sister even got out of the door. She sighed and jogged out, making sure she had the key and some of her money in her pocket, closing the door firmly and racing her sister down the flight of stairs in the apartment. The smaller aphid was out the doors first though, but that was more of her ability to slip between people coming up the other way and her sister having to take a bit more time and care.

However, Lacier knew better than to run off outside, and waited to take Guyenne's hand and the pair of them proceeded towards the bus stop outside the complex of council estates that the insects lived on. This was the only stop for the many males who went out to work in the city, a bus would come and collect them all and take them all to their jobs. It wasn't the best bus in the world - in fact it was privately owned and the groundhog did the rounds more or less out of the goodness of his heart - his only request is that if they could, the insects would chip in a little towards petrol. More or less everyone did.

The rather diminutive rodent would sometimes come back in between the main drop-off times to ferry those who wanted into the main shopping district, but on a Tuesday, that rarely happened. He still turned up now and again on the day, but whenever asked why, he'd just tap his nose a few times and grin.

"Stuff happened," was the most anyone had reportedly got out of him, and Guyenne thought about those little words as she and her sister got into the nearly-empty bus shelter, the only other occupant a rather elderly and wrinkled ant lady.

"The little Aphid girls, aren't you?" she asked in her voice, which sounded about as aged and crinkled as she was, her smile seeming to appear as just another crease in her face. Guyenne nodded with a little wave, and it was Lacier who struck up the conversation.

"Yes Missus Ant," she said pleasantly, hopping up onto one of the intact seats on the stop wall. "We're going to meet a detective today!" she added excitedly, before Guyenne could remember what a chatterbox her sister could be, and the implications of this scrap of information could be if it got out.

"Oh, a detective?" asked the elderly ant. "Whatever for?" To the teenager's eternal relief, it seemed Mrs. Ant's eyesight wasn't brilliant, and she didn't flinch as she clamped a hand around her little sister's mouth.

"We're not hiring him - he's just a distant friend that we're going to see," she lied with a gleeful smile on her face. However, she grabbed one of her sister's antennae and wrapped hers around it. _"Mum and Dad can't find out about it - don't tell any woman about it,"_ she communicated, withdrawing her antennae as soon as the communiqué was finished. Lacier paused for a moment, her mouth open and ready to reply, but nothing came out, much to the elder one's relief, and she sat down with a sigh of relief. A clang of a bell announced the bus's arrival before Mrs Ant could press on further.

"Oh, good, the bus is here. I'll finally be able to go shopping," she murmured, shuffling at her tectonic speed towards the open door of the bus. Lacier bounded onboard with a cheery 'hello' to the groundhog, while Guyenne, with a lot of difficulty, helped the old woman onto the bus, with the driver's help after a while.

"How are you today, young Guyenne?" he asked, as the green-hued insect tossed a pair of Mobiums into the dish. She smiled, brushing her hair out of her eyes again and digging a scrap of paper out of her pocket.

"I'm fine thanks, Mr Davidson," she said pleasantly. "Could we go to this address?" she asked, handing him the scrap on which she'd written Detective Bee's address. The groundhog studied it for a moment, then nodded, handing it back with a smile.

"It's not too far from here, come to think of it. You two can get off first," he said, gesturing to the two seats just behind him, causing Guyenne to have to bring Lacier forward from the back of the bus (with much protestation) just before, with its' usual cough and splutter, the engine of Mr Davidson's bus came to life and lurched forward, beginning on its' journey towards the headquarters of - what was it called again?

"_Damn it, I can't even remember what the association is called!"_ she thought angrily, kneading her forehead with her fist to try and force the name back. Eventually though, she just lay back and accepted that once again, her memory had failed once again.

* * *

"It should be around here somewhere…" Guyenne mumbled, frowning down at her sheet of paper as they made another loop of the block. Lacier whined and complained loudly, but it wasn't particularly heard by her sister. She knew she was on the right street, this was also the right area of town, but somehow the actual block didn't seem to be around. She held back a curse word, and looked around for anybody who would be able to help her get directions. Unfortunately, there was no-one around except for a group of various rodents who were smoking on a street corner not far away. She tried to ignore some of the nasty looks she was getting from them, and quintuple-checked the names of the streets, and the map of the area posted on the billboard despite the many burns and scratches on its' surface.

"_Gu…?" _antennae-whispered her sister in a frightened way, and Guyenne turned round to feel herself drop a few body temperature degrees in fright. A couple of the smokers were approaching her, their fags thrown to the ground and leers on their faces. Guyenne took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a second, begging something to come and stop them if they had malicious intent.

"Oi, you," shouted one of them, a meerkat with his cigarette still in the corner of his mouth. "What're you doing around here?" The rest of what appeared to be his posse then took up positions around him, and also blocking off the right escape - there was a wall to their left, and they were backed up against the sign, so truthfully they were barricaded. Lacier began to cry.

"Aw, look at the little bug, crying," put forward a rat with a sneer. "Shall we put her out of her misery and squish her like the bug she is?" This was met by grins and laughs of assent from the group, and the smaller aphid tucked into her older sister. The meerkat took a step forward, fumbling around in his coat for something.

"We don't like you bugs making our streets all filthy," he said, causing a momentary degree of rationality in Guyenne as she considered the streets could hardly be more dirty than they already were. However, the speaker was continuing. "So I think Raz here has a point. Let's squi…" both insects had flinched as he began the word, but he never finished it - a gunshot rang out and broke him off mid-word. All the rodents looked up to the wall, and Guyenne chanced a look herself, only to have her jaw drop open in surprise.

"If it's cleanliness you're concerned about, you could do a lot worse than actually getting a broom and mop. Of course, you'd need to work on yourselves for about a month before you were ready," said a chirpy and slightly cocky voice from up on the wall. The speaker was a black-and-yellow banded bee, wearing a pair of dark brown and tattered jeans, sneakers that looked like they were the long-lost twins of Guyenne's, an orange bomber jacket and a helmet of the same colour, where his antennae poked out from holes made in the casing.

"Detective," said one of the rodents politely, all of them stepping back from the two girls and the meerkat withdrawing his hand from his coat. Lacier looked up from her crying into her sister's jeans, and stared in awe as the bee leapt off the wall, using his wings to glide to a stop on the ground and keeping his gun at a level height.

"_Is that him?"_ the younger one asked her sister through their antennae, but Guyenne didn't answer. She was pretty sure there weren't any other bee detectives in the area, maybe not even in the city, but there was still a little niggling of doubt in her head.

"Do you want me to make you go away, or can you leave these girls alone?" he asked the gang, giving his thumb a little flick on the side of his firearm. There was a small pause among the adolescents, but eventually they all shuffled off, some with nods at the bee. Soon, they were all around the corner, and away from sight. Then, the bee turned with a smile to both aphids. "Hope they didn't scare ya too much," he said with a cheerful smile on his face as if they had been no trouble at all. Lacier didn't reply, so Guyenne stepped in, blushing a little and pushing her hair out of her face.

"No, it's perfectly all right. Thank you," she replied sheepishly. "You're not Detective Bee, are you?" she asked hopefully. Her heart sank for a moment when he shook his head, then rose again with the answer.

"I'm Charmy," he replied with a grin. "You must be Miss Aphid and Miss Aphid?" He looked from one to another, still with a pleasant smile on his face that put the two much more at rest. The elder of the two nodded, but her little sister shook her head indignantly.

"No, I'm Lacier and she's Guyenne," she said, in a confused tone. Charmy laughed at that, and Guyenne couldn't hold back a smile either.

"Sorry 'bout that, Lacier," the detective said. "Can you two fly? It'd be easier to get to my office then…" he broke off as both girls shook their heads. He shrugged, still smiling, and pulled a key out of his pocket. "No problem, I'll let you two in. Follow me," and sure enough, he began to move off, gesturing for the two aphids to follow him. Guyenne instinctively crouched down to prise her sister off her leg, but Lacier had already left her sister's jean and was running after the helmeted bee. However, she looked down to notice that her knee that she'd sewn up that morning had opened again, and for a minute or so, she bit her lip and swore at herself inside her head. Here she was, meeting a detective she needed to make a good impression on, and she was coming in with horrible slashes on her jeans.

"Hi there, Mrs L," Charmy said brightly, bringing Guyenne back to her senses as she stepped out of the way of a rather fat female squirrel who was beaming back towards the teenage bee as he nipped in the slowly-closing door.

"Oh, hello Charmy. I see you've got some clients… or friends round?" she asked, and the elder aphid giggled as she slipped past Charmy as he held the door open for the two girls, and she saw him wink at the squirrel and give a grin.

"Both, I think, Mrs L," he said with a smile at Guyenne, slipping in after her and walking alongside her as they mounted the steps. "Floor three, room number three-seven Lacier," he called up to her little sister, who seemed eager to leap up the stairs, but unsure as to where exactly where to go. She nodded, and began scrambling up the brown-carpeted steps as the elder sister went up and a more leisurely pace - she suspected he could easily have flown up the landing, but was using the stairs purely out of politeness, something she quite appreciated.

"Thanks for agreeing to talk this over with me," she said tentatively. She looked across to Charmy, who was fumbling with a keychain at his side, though oddly the tagline with the initials on it read V.C. rather than C.B. He seemed a little too occupied with the many keys hanging around the ring rather than looking up at her, but she didn't assume it was anything to do with impoliteness - he didn't have much of that, to be honest.

"No problem," he said, dragging out the 'o' sound in the 'no' which lasted as long as it took to take the keys out. "Here we go… I really have to start labelling or colouring some of these," he muttered, shaking a ring that would easily have left room had it been draped around Guyenne's neck. He tapped each individual key, muttering under his breath as the aphid looked in extreme interest at the sheer number of keys he held. Though he claimed not to have labelled any, she did notice one tag on the edge, and reached forward to read it.

"Is this the one you're looking for?" she asked, holding the one that read 'home' on the orange tag behind it. Charmy looked down for a second, then nodded, grinning.

"Thanks, Miss Aphid. I keep all the duplicate keys I take from previous cases, and I have some… previous ones," he then added slowly, staring at the line of keys hanging straight down at the bottom of the ring with a hint of sadness lining his eyes. It was wiped away quickly though, and he took the key Guyenne had picked out from it and slotted it into the apartment door they'd got to, where Lacier was hopping excitedly up and down outside.

"Are we going in Mr Detective?" she asked impatiently as Charmy fumbled with the lock. The bee nodded, not paying his full attention to the little green insect as he twisted his key this way and that. Her older sister felt the touch of her antennae on her own, and was subject to the whispers from Lacier.

"_Why isn't he listening to us much?"_

"_I don't think he is, Lace,"_ replied Guyenne, using the short name for her sister to make things easier on speaking terms. _"He probably has a lot on his mind at the moment. Just try to focus on why we're here,"_ she added, nodding at her sister as she disconnected their antennae.

"Okay then, we're in!" Detective Bee then said triumphantly as the door creaked open after some time tweaking the key this way and that. He held the door open for the two aphids, rubbing the back of his helmet and drawing a small circle on the ground with the toe of his sneaker. "Yeah, it's a bit of a mess… sorry…"

"It's so cool!" yelled out Lacier in glee, sprinting into the middle of the apartment, easily bigger than the main room of their house. Guyenne followed, not so much picking up the presence of a radio, television and books in someone's apartment but the fact that there was no mould, no mysterious smell or green texture climbing the walls. She was looking around in such admiration she barely noticed Charmy's insistences that it wasn't a particularly expensive apartment - in fact it was a very cheap and pretty natty one. However, the girl wasn't listening, she was too wrapped up in how incredible this place looked in comparison to her family's own apartment.

"Please, take a seat," Charmy then added, tapping Guyenne on the shoulder to knock her out of her reverie. She blushed a little, but sat down on one of the extremely sagging cushions on the chair and folded her hands in her lap. Lacier bounded up and hopped next to her, looking forward eagerly as Detective Bee sat himself down opposite them, and flipped out a notebook that looked, surprisingly, in pristine form. "Right, ladies. You said you had a missing Chao?" he asked, after scribbling something at the top of his page. Lacier's usually bouncy face fell a little and she nodded sadly, brushing her sister's antennae.

"_Can you tell him, Gu?"_ she whispered, and her sister nodded, taking her cap off and dropping it into her sister's lap for the younger insect to play with. Charmy watched all this with some interest, but said nothing if he did find it confusing in any way The aphid covered the rips in her jeans up with her hands and began to explain.

"Well, yesterday morning, I picked my sister up from an art club she goes to, and we found that her Chao, Ka, had gone missing. We went outside to look for him, and we saw to guys running off with it… him under their arms," she explained, adding the last bit after a ferocious glare from her sister. Charmy nodded, having sketched a little bit more in his notebook. He sucked on the inside of his mouth, and then wrote a few more things down.

"I take it Lacier can read?" he asked, stopping mid-word, it seemed. Guyenne bit her lip as Lacier shook her head, but Charmy didn't seem to mind. He simply carried on writing, and then tore out the page, folding over the top. "It's no problem - Guyenne, you wouldn't mind filling this out then?" he asked, handing over the slip and a pen towards her. The girl took them gingerly, and checked down the list of things concerning Ka that she was asked to fill in.

As she was doing it, she noticed that Charmy was fixing up the television, and was asking Lacier if she'd like to watch. Guyenne giggled a little at her sister's confused look - usually television was only reserved for the grown-ups when they wanted to watch something serious, like the news or the sport.

"No, there are things kids can watch too," laughed the bee, playing about with the coat hanger stuffed into the back of the TV to act as an aerial until a fuzzy picture that slowly made its' way into a more focussed image of some kids' afternoon TV programme. Lacier stared for a moment, and as soon as the volume came on, with the presenter appealing directly to the viewers with a description of what was to come, the little aphid seemed entranced. Guyenne smiled at Charmy, who came to sit beside her and he glanced over at the programme.

"I used to love this programme when I was young. That mark is where my stinger eventually just punctured the sofa from so much sitting in the same place," he added, pointing to a place on the arm of the couch where the fabric was ripped and the fluff inside was leaking out. Guyenne looked up from her list of questions to blink a little at Charmy.

"You've been here for a long time then?" she asked, slightly too curiously. The bee removed his helmet and ran his hand through his antennae, nodding eventually.

"It's a pretty long story," he admitted, but Guyenne's interest was piqued and she didn't want to back down.

"We've got time," she retorted, her interest in what foods Ka liked to eat now completely washed away. Charmy gave a little sigh, and began what was to be one of the most shocking tales the aphid would ever hear in her life.


End file.
